White chocolate cherry orange scones

I had white chocolate and dried cherries leftover from a Christmas cookie I tried this year, so I decided to put them to use for breakfast.

White chocolate cherry orange scones

Adapted from the chocolate chip orange scones in “SimplyScones” by Leslie Weiner and Barbara Albright

Ingredients

1 tablespoon orange liqueur such as Triple Sec

½ cup chopped dried cherries

2 cups flour

⅓ cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup butter, cold and cut into chunks

Zest of 1 orange

2 eggs

3 tablespoons orange juice

½ teaspoon vanilla

¼ cup white chocolate chips

Method

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment.

Toss dried cherries with orange liqueur in a small bowl. Set aside.

Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and sugar in a large bowl. Cut in butter using a pastry blender until you’ve reached the coarse crumb stage. Toss in orange zest and distribute evenly.

Mix eggs, orange juice and vanilla. Stir into flour-butter mixture to incorporate. Stir in reserved cherries, including any liquid, and chocolate chips. Knead lightly in the bowl to bring the mixture together. Pat into a circle about a ½-inch thick on the prepared baking sheet. With a sharp knife or pastry scraper, cut into 8 wedges, but don’t separate them.

Bake for 17 to 23 minutes at 4:25 until golden and a cake tester comes out clean. Separate the wedges and serve warm with butter.

Rating: A perfectly fine scone, and the white chocolate chips are barely noticeable, which is preferable in my opinion to those large lumps of white chocolate that show up in coffeehouse scones.